Machine for folding and winding strips of flexible material



(No Model.) 5'Sheets-Sheet 1.

A. L. ADAMS & G. EQHAWES. MACHINE FOR FOLDING AND WINDING STRIPS 0PFLEXIBLE MATERIAL.

,586. Patented Nov. 30, 1897..

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(No Model.) 5 SheetsSheet 2.

A. L. ADAMS 8: G. E. HAWES. MACHINE FOR FOLDING AND WINDING STRIPS OFFLEXIBLE MATERIAL. "No. 594,586.

Patented Nov. 30,1897.

WITNESSES:

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A. L. ADAMS & G. E. HAWES. MACHINE IOR FOLDING AND WINDING STRIPS 0FFLEXIBLE MATERIAL.

No. 594,586. Patented Nov. 30,1897.

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A. L. ADAMS & G. E. HAWES. MACHINE FOR FOLDING AND WINDING STRIPS 0FFLEXIBLE MATERIAL.

No. 594,586. Patented Nov. 30, 1897.

(No Model.)

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A, IL. ADAMS 8'6 G. E. HAWES'. MAGHINB FOR FOLDING AND WINDING STRIPS 0FFLEXIBLE MATERIAL.

Patented Nov. 30 1897.

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WITNESSES NITED STATES PATENT FFICE.

ABRAHAM L. ADAMS AND GEORGE E. I-IAWES, OF BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT.

MACHINE F OR FOLDING AND WINDING STRIPS OF FLEXIBLE MATERIAL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 594,586, dated November30, 1897.

Application filed January 2 1 1 3 9 '7- To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, ABRAHAM L. ADAMS and GEORGE E. I-IAWES, citizens ofthe United States, residing at Bridgeport, in the county of Fair-fieldand State of Connecticut, have invented certain new and usefulImprovements in Machines for Automatically Folding and Winding Strips ofFlexible Material; and we do hereby declare the following to be a full,

clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enableothers skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use thesame.

Our invention relates to certain improvements in machines forautomatically folding and winding strips of flexible material, and is animprovement upon the machine shown and described in our pendingapplication, Se rial No. 598,227, filed July 6, 1896; and it'consists incertain details of construction and combination of elements hereinafterfurther set forth and then specifically designated by the claims.

The object of the present invention is to provide a machine which willfold or wind any width of strip and in which the parts may be soadjusted and arranged that the folding maybe performed upon oneedgeonly, or, if desired, the depths of the folds of the two edges may vary,while at the same time the strip is so guided and heldat such a tensionthat the winding operation is performed with great facility.

A still further object of our improvement is to provide a stop-motionwhich shall be automatically operated by the strip itself, so that whenthe latter has been nearly used up and passed through the folding andwinding devices the machine will come to a stop, thereby enabling theoperator to neatly join the end of a succeeding strip to the rear end ofthe preceding strip, so that in effect an endless strip may be passedthrough the machine.

In the accompanying drawings, which form a part of this application,Figure 1 is a side elevation of ourimproved machine; Fig. 2, a planview; Fig. 3, a section at the line a a of Fig. 2; Fig. 4:, a detailsectional elevation of the'windirig-drum at the line b b of Fig. 2; Fig.5, a view similar to Fig. 4, but showing the winding-drum collapsed;Fig. 6, a detail broken plan view of the bed of the machine,

' Serial No. 619,994.. (No model.)

showing particularly the m echanisni whereby the machine is started andstopped; Fig. '7, a detail perspective of the combined guide and tensiondevice; Fig. 8, a detail bro'ken'perspective showing the applianceswhich operate in connection with the strip for automatically stoppingthe machine; Fig. 9, a detail broken perspective of a portion of the rodwhich connects such mechanism with the beltshifting appliance, and Fig.10 a bottom plan view of the machine.

Similar numbers of reference denote like parts in the several figures ofthe drawings.

In our pending application above referred to we showed and describedpermanent appliances for folding a certain width of strips, and it wasimpossible to vary the width of such strips without the substitution ofanother set of rollers; also, the folding devices comprised a rollhaving in its periphery a series of annular grooves and another rollhaving corresponding peripheral collars which fit within such grooves,so that when the strip wasled between these rolls the edges would bebent at right angles to the body of the strip, the latter being thendeflected against a round surface, so as to cause the edges to lie flatagainst the body of the strip. Our present improvement contemplates thecomplete folding of the edges of the strip in an entirely differentmanner, which will permit of the adjustmeut of the folding devices, soas to acconimodate different widths of the strips, which improvement wewill now describe.

1 is the bed of the machine; 2, the powershaft, having mounted on oneextremity tight and loose pulleys 3 4, respectively. 5 6 are pulleysmounted on said shaft on opposite sides of the bed.

7 is a rod held within boxes 8, secured upon the bed, said rod beingcapable of a free sliding movement and having secured to one extremityan ordinary belt-shifter 9. g

10 11 are toggles, the former pivoted to one of the boxes, while thetoggle 11 is pivoted to a block 12, rigidly secured to the rod 7.

13 is a link, one end of which is pivoted to the toggles at the pointwhere the latter are pivoted together, the other extremity of such linkbeing pivoted to a hand-lever 14, which is within'reach of the operator,so that it will be clear that when this hand-lever is operated tostraighten the toggles the belt will be shifted from the loose pulleyupon the tight pulley for the obvious purpose of starting the machine.is a coil-spring whose extremities are connected to the bed and theupper end of the lever 14 in such manner as to normally throw thetoggles into the position shown in Figs. 2 and (5. This belt-shifterconstruction is quite ordinary and forms no part of our inventionproper, and it is merely described in order that no confusion may ariseas to the operation of the structure illustrated in the drawings.

16 is a notch in the rod '7, and 17 isa springactuated latch supportedin any ordinary way within a housing 15, secured to the bed, which latchwill engage with said notch when the toggles have been straightened outin the manner hereinbefore described for the purpose of holdingt-he beltupon the tight pulley.

10 is a link-bar, to which the spindle of the latch is pivoted, theouter end of said bar extending within a groove 20 in the housing 18(see Fig. 3) and bearing againstsaid housing.

21 is a light wire rod loosely secured to the inner end of the link 19,said rod having connection with certain appliances, hereinafter to bedescribed, whereby the latch 17 may be withdrawn from the notch 16, thusenabling the spring 15 to shift the belt onto the loose pulley.

22 is a shaft supported at its ends within the sides of the frame, itbeing immaterial whether this shaft is journaled so as to revolve orwhether it is stationary, although we prefer that it should be journaledso as to revolve in order to reduce the friction to a minimum while thestrip is being folded, as will be hereinafter explained. Rigidly securedupon this shaft by means of set-screws 23 (one only being shown) areplain collars 2-l. (See Figs. 3 and 10.) Immediately above the shaft 22are ironing-rolls 25 26, the former being mounted upon a shaft 27, whichis journaled within a frame 28, pivoted, by means of a rod 29 at itslower extremity, between the sides of the machine-frame, while the roll26 is supported on a shaft 30, journaled between the sides of themachine-frame. The outer extremities of the shafts 27 30 project throughthe sides of the machine-frame and are provided with intermeshingspurgears 31 32, the opening in the frame through which the shaft 27projects being slightly elongated to permit of a slightswinging-movement of the frame 28. Set-screws 33, driven through blocks34, supported on the machineframe, bear directly against spring-backedpins 35, carried at opposite sides of the upper portion of the frame 28,so that the movement of said frame will be resilient, while at the sametime by operating the screws 33 the roll 25 may be caused to bear withmore or less force against the roll 26. On the extreme end of the shaft30, immediately beyond the gear 32, is a pulley 36, which is belted upto the pulley 6, whereby motion may be communicated to theseironing-rolls.

The collars'24c are so adjusted that the distance between them isexactly equal to the width of the folded strip, and it will be observedthat the latter is led around the shaft 22 immediately between theironing-rollers, so that it will be clear that the latter will draw thestrip. The width of the unfolded strip is greater than the distancebetween the collars by the combined width of the folds themselves, andas the strip is drawn along by the ironing-rollers the edges will beautomatically creased and folded by the action of the inner faces of thecollars, the deflection of such folded strip causing the folded edges tolie flat down against the bottom of the strip, so that they will be inproper position before they are subjected to the ironing operation. Itis, however, necessary that the unfolded strip should be delivered tothe folding-collars at a suitable tension and should be guided in astraight line with respect to the space between such collars, and wehave therefore provided a combined guide and tension device, which wewill now describe. Our com.- bined guide and tension plate comprisesside bars 37 and a series of stiff wires 38, whose extreme ends aresecured within said bars,

the wires being arranged at suitable distances apart. 39 are parallelbars through which these wires pass loosely, so that said bars may bereadily moved toward or away from each other upon the wires, and 40 areset-screws carried by these bars, by means of which the latter may be.rigidly secured to any one of the wires. The distance between these bars39 when properly adjusted for use must be exactly equal to the width ofthe unfolded strip, while at the same time said bars must be so adjustedand held by the set-screws 40 that the vertical plane which extendslengthwise and exactly midway between the bars 39 must be coincidentwith the vertical plane which intersects the shaft 22 crosswise andexactly midway between the inner edges of the collars 24. This relativeadjustment and arrangement of the collars 2 1 and guide-bars 39 is ofcourse desirable and proper only in instances where the strip is to befolded so that the flaps of the folded portions shall be precisely thesame width, and it will be clear that should it become necessary to folda strip on one edge only this may readily be accomplished by making theproper relative adjustments of these collars and bars.

41 is the strip of cloth or other material which is interwoven with asmany of the wires 38 as may be found necessary in order to give theproper tension, and right in this connection we desire to say that whilewe are of course aware that this manner of obtaining the tension is notbroadly new, and we have no desire to be understood as making anygeneric claim for the same, still as a part of our specific device inconnection with the adjustable guide-bars this tension device becomesquite an important feature of our improvement and upon which we shallhereinafter base one or more claims.

.After the strip has been folded and ironed it is delivered to certainappliances which op erate to wind the strip into coil form suitable forcommercial use, and these appliances we will now describe.

42 is a frame loosely supported at one end around the shaft 2, so as tobe capable of a free vertical swinging movement, a pawl 43 being securedto theother end of the frame and adapted to engage with ratchet-teeth 44in a lever 45, which latter is pivoted at its lower extremity to theframe of the machine.

46 is a post which rises from the bed of the machine, and 47 is acoil-spring, whose extremities are connected, respectively, to said postand to the lever 45, the function of this spring being to normally throwsaid lever toward the pawl 43, so that the lever will yield resilientlyas the frame 42 is elevated to permit the pawl to engage with succeedingratchet-teeth. I

48 49 are separate head-blocks, which are supported and journaled withinthe frame 42 at opposite sides in such manner as to be capable ofrevolution.

50 is a keeper-ring secured to the inner end of the block 48 by means ofa collar 5l,interposed between said ring and block, and

I screws 52, driven through the ring and collar into the block. I

53 are fingers whose inner ends extend within the ring and are attachedto the latter by means of screws 54, which pass through elongated slots55 in the ring into the fingers themselves. These screws are merelydriven into the fingers to adepth sufficient to permit the heads of thescrews to project beyond the outer surface of the ring a slightdistance, so that when the fingers are not supported in the mannerpresently to be described said fingers will drop or collapse until theirmovement is arrested by the striking of the screwheads against the bodyof the ring, as shown at Fig. 5, the elongated slots 55 readilypermitting this movement. The fingers are interiorly beveled orohamfered at their rear extremities, as shown at 56, and the forward endof the block 48 is correspondingly beveled, as seen at 57, this beveledpart of the block being always in engagement with the beveled. portionof the fingers for the purpose presently to be explained.

The block 48 is tubular, and the spindle 58 passes freely through thisblock and is provided at its free end with a hand-wheel 59. The innerend of this spindle is threaded and takes within a thread in a socket60, formed within the inner face of the block 49. Around the inner endof the block 49 is akeeper-ring 61, which is secured in position bymeans of a collar 62, which is placed around the block, and screws 63,driven through said ring and collar into the block itself.

Presupposing the parts to be in the position' shown at Fig.' 4, it willbe clear that if the hand-wheel 59 be operated so as to withdraw thespindle 58 from the block 49 the latter may then be readily retracted,whereupon the fingers 53 will collapse, as shown at Fig. 5. It should bestated, however, that the inner end of the block 49 is beveled, as seenat 64, and that the tips of the fingers are interiorly beveled at theirinner ends, as seen at 65, so that when the parts are in the position asshown at Fig. 4, the fingers will be supported in their distendedposition upon the beveled portions of the two blocks 48 49. The partsare restored to the position shown at Fig. 4 by simply pushing the block49 inward, whereupon its beveled end will strike the beveled portions ofthe fingers and cause the latter to distend until they rest firmly uponthe block, and then the spindle is operated to drive its threaded endwithin the block 49 and thus securely lock the parts together. The outersurfaces of these fingers 53 are curved so as to present as a whole incross-section a circle, as seen at Fig. 3, and these fingers constitutethe drum on which the folded strip is wound, and for this purpose a slit66 is formed in one of the fingers, within which slit the end of thestrip maybe forced, so as to attach the same in order that a properwinding may be insured.

When it becomes necessary to take off a coil of the folded strip, theblock 49 is withdrawn in the manner hereinbefore described and thefingers allowed to collapse, whereupon the coil may be readily removedwithout any danger of distortion; also, acoil may be placed upon thecollapsed drum and secured in position by the distention of the fingers,so that the free end of the coiled strip may be secured to another stripand the coil wound into larger form. As the coil increases in diameterduring the winding operation it will of course rest by gravity againstthe roll 26, and the frame 42 will be gradually elevated thereby, andwill be successively locked in its elevated positions by means of thepawl 43 and ratchet 44. Of course the winding must not be performed at arate faster than the rate at which the folded strip is delivered fromthe rolls 25 26, and therefore we have provided the usual means' wherebythe winding may be properly performed, which means we will describe,although it is specifically the same as the corresponding means setforth in our pending application referred to.

A shouldered collar 67 is secured around the block 48, and mountedaround this collar and bearing against the same by friction only is aloose pulley 68.

69 is a ring around the block 48 and capable of a movement lengthwisethereof, and 70 is a washer of leather or other suitable materialinterposed between said ring and the side of the pulley 68.

71 is a nut on .the outer end of the block 48, and 72 is a coil-springaround the block and bearing against said nut and against the ring 69,so that a pressure is brought to bear against the pulley 68, whereby thelatter may be bound with friction against the collar 67.

A belt connects the pulleys 5 6S, and when the winding-drum has atendency to take up a greater length of the folded strip than is properthe pulley 68 will simply slip without causing such drum to revolve.

The rod 21, hereinbefore referred to, extends beneath the bed to thefront of the machine and is properly supported within suitable hangers,the rear end of such rod extending through an eye '73 at one end of alink 71-, the extremity of said rod being provided with a head 75 toprevent disengagement from the link, while at the same time said rod mayhave a free lengthwise movement through said eye.

76 is an extension from the bed, within which is supported a rock-shaft77, to which are secured at the sides thereof L-levers 78. These levers,in connection with the rocksha-ft, form in reality a bell-crank lever,and we will make use of this term in the further description of ourimprovement.

70 are cross-wires which extend horizontally from side to side of theextension 76, and 80 are parallel U-shaped wires which depend from theinner ends of the bell-crank and are adapted to pass freely between thecrosswires '79. The free end of the link 7i is pivoted to the lower legof the bell-crank, so that it will be clear that when the upper leg ofthe bell-crank drops down the lower leg will operate to retract the link74 in a direction away from the machine proper, whereby the latch 17willbe withdrawn from the notch 16, for the purpose hereinbefore setforth.

The strip 41 as it is led through the machine passes directly over theeross-wires 7 9, and the U-shaped wires 80 rest upon such strip and areprevented from dropping through the cross-wires only by the resistanceafforded by the strip itself, and it will therefore be readilyunderstood that when the end of the strip has been reached and thelatter is withdrawn from between the cross-- wires and the wires 80 theupper portion of the bell-crank will then drop by gravity, thuswithdrawing the latch 17 from the notch 16 and causing the machine tocome to a state of rest. This enables the operator, as before stated, tojoin a succeeding strip to the rear end of the preceding strip for thepurposes hercinbefore set forth, and, furthermore, it relieves theoperator from any anxiety as to the withdrawal of the strip from thefolding devices and the consequent entanglement of such strip during thewinding operation.

A dog 81 is pivoted at the side of the bed, the lower extremity of thedog being pivotally connected to a block 82, which latter is secured tothe wire rod 21, so that the operator may at any time by depressing thisdog cause the machine to stop independent of the operation of thebell-crank lever at the rear of the machine, because it will be borne inmind that the rod will slip freely through the eye 73.

The holding of the winding-drum and coiled strip by means of the pawl 43and ratchetlever 45 not only relieves the drum from undue Vibration, butalso conveniently holds the drum in elevation while the coiled strip isbeing removed.

It is of course immaterial whether the shape of the shaft 22 is round orangular in crosssection or whether such shaft revolves or not, since inany instance the strip will be properly creased and the folded edgeslaid down prior to their passage between the ironingrollers, and we havetherefore shown these two styles of shaft in Figs. 3 and 10,respectively.

lVe have shown and described our improvement as adapted for folding andwinding a single strip; but of course these parts may be duplicated, soas to provide a series of such devices, and we therefore do not wish tolimit ourselves to the use of but a single set of the same.

Our improvement is exceedingly useful for the purpose of merely windin ga strip,whether the same has folded edges or not, for the combinedtension and guide will hold and deliver the strip properly, so that thecoils will be wound perfectly true, and therefore we do not wish to belimited to the use of this combined tension and guide in connection withthe folding devices.

It will thus be clear that our present improvement differs materiallyfrom the construction shown and described in our pending applicationreferred to in that the latter contemplates the use of collars whichcooperate with annular grooves for the purpose of creasing and foldingthe strip,whereas the gist of our present invention rests in the broadidea of providing collars at a distance apart equal to the width of thefolded strip and in delivering the unfolded strip at a tension betweenthese collars and then deflecting the folded strip at a tension at anabrupt angle to the plane in which it was originally delivered betweenthe collars, so that such folded strip will closely hug the shaft, whichconstitutes the surface against which the folding is effected.

Having thus described our invention, what we claim as new, and desire tosecure by Letters Patent, is

- 1. In a machine of the character described, the combination of theshaft against which the folding is effected, the collars mounted on saidshaft and separated by a distance equal to the width of the foldedstrip, means for delivering the strip at a tension between said collars,and means for deflecting the folded strip at a tension around said shaftwhereby the latter is closely hugged by said strip, substantially as setforth.

2. In a machine of the character described,

the combination of the shaft against which the folding is effected, thefoldingcollars mounted on said 1 shaft and separated by a distance equalto the width of the folded strip, means for delivering the unfoldedstrip between said collars, and means for drawing the strip between thecollars and snugly around said shaft, whereby the edges are folded andcaused to lie flat against the body of the strip, substantially as setforth.

3. In a machine of the character described, the combination of theshaft, the collars secured thereon at a distance apart equal to thewidth of the folded strip, means for delivering the unfolded stripbetween said collars at a tension,and a pair of ironing-rolls throughwhich the folded strip is passed, the location of such rolls withrespect to said shaft being such that the folded strip will be deflectedand caused to closely hug said shaft, substantially as set forth.

4. In a machine of the character described,

- the combination of the shaft, the adjustable collars secured thereon,the combined tension and guide device supported on the bed of themachine and whereby the strip is delivered at a proper tension and'inthe proper direction with respect to said collars, and the ironing-rollsthrough which the folded strip is passed, said rolls being capable ofdrawing the strip between the folding-collars and snugly against saidshaft, substantially as set forth.

5. The combination of the frame which supports the winding devices, thehead-blocks supported within said frame one of said blocks being tubularand the other block provided at its inner end with a threaded socket,while the inner ends of both blocks are beveled, the keeper-ringssecured to the inner ends of each block, the fingers interiorly beveledat both ends and loosely connected at their bases to the keeper-ringattached to the tubular block and whereby said fingers may be capable ofdistention or contraction, and the spindle threaded at its inner end toengage with said threaded socket, substantially as set forth.

6. The combination of the extension from the bed ,supporting cross-wiresover which the strip is delivered, the rock-shaft journaled within suchextension at the end thereof and beyond said wires, the cranks securedat opposite ends of said rock-shaft and carrying U-shaped wires whichare adapted to pass between said cross-wires when said cranks arelowered, one of said cranks having a depending portion whereby a bellcrank is formed, the belt-shifting appliances, and the rod connected tothe depending portion of said bell-crank and to said appliances,substantially as set forth.

In testimony whereof we affix our signatures in presence of twowitnesses.

ABRAHAM L. ADAMS. GEORGE E. I-IAWES.

Witnesses:

F. W. SMITH, Jr., M. T. LONGDEN.

